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And November Rained	By : atomichatred82 Category: 1 through F > Battle Royale Views: 1709 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Battle Royale, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-And November Rained
- 1
Title : And November Rained (1/2)
Author : Arlyn Jayde
E-mail : atomichatred82@lycos.com
Rating : NC-17
Pairing : Naoki Jo/Shugo Urabe
Archive : Battle School, anyone else ask first
Spoilers : Not really, takes place before the events in Battle Royale 2
Disclaimer : Don’t know them, don’t own them, don’t sue me.
Summary : Sometimes, the things that you don’t understand are the very same things that you just can’t let go.
Author’s Note : As with my previous Naoki/Shugo fics…loooooooooooooong. x-posted on

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Nobody is here baby
Noone here to blame
Noone to point the finger at
It’s just you and me and the rain…

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The woman in the picture had a sweet-summery smile that seemed determined to defeat her mundane surroundings, the amateurish holiday shot posed against a beige wall with stray leaves of potted plants from somewhere off the camera. The photograph had lost some of its original tint from age and wear, though it was dated no more than three years ago, and the edges of the glossy paper were frayed and worn, the signal of an item oft-handled, as lovingly as possible but still leaving behind marks, fingers creasing the white-bordered corners. Yet she went beyond all this, a woman in her thirties, confident in poise and grace, a woman who didn’t dye her hair or paint her fingernails or look for cellulite in front of the bathroom mirror or schedule in a doctor’s appointment to have the fat sucked from under her skin. She was real and down-to-earth and simple, with flowing black hair and that dimpled smile, that smile alone elevated her beyond the realm of physical form, and the way she looked at you through time and space made you desperate to believe that she was unscathed, untouched by the evils of the world, at once innocent and all-knowing.

“You have her eyes, Jo…” Shugo said, whispering into a bare shoulder that sloped down onto a taut-fleshed arm, where he could see the puckered flesh of a scar that went several inches around.

“You think?”

He nodded, drawing his chin across the nape of Jo’s neck. “They’re exactly the same.”

Shugo had sniffles from yesterday’s rugby practice in the pouring rain and he was feeling slightly feverish, a rim of heat around his eyes, his throat sore, and Jo’s back felt cold against his chest as he looked over the taller boy’s shoulder and into the picture held in Jo’s hands.

“She had one child and worked two jobs, if you could believe it—one child and two jobs not because one job wasn’t enough but because she wanted to go the extra length.”

“She wasn’t content with enough.”

“She wasn’t content with enough for me.” Jo said. “She wanted the best schools and the best books and trips to the amusement park and museums and those science centers with bright-colored displays made especially for the kids.”

“She loved you.”

“Said I was the best thing that ever happened to her.” Jo sighed ruefully. “Which is more than, you know, anyone could say about my father.”

When he spoke of his father he became bitter, either intentionally or not, the man who married his pregnant girlfriend but then realized his mistake and left her before the baby was even born, coming back intermittently either to ask for money or to say something that was nowhere near nice, unemployed and drunk, regarding his own son with a look of passing regret, like how did you ever happen and why the hell did I buy a particularly shitty brand of condoms that night, and Jo told these stories with bitterness but also with a sense of detachment, that he’s-not-even-worth-my-feelings way of speaking, he stripped his father off any connection to himself, a man whose face he hardly recalled now and would rather not at all, and how grateful he was that he didn’t have to carry his father’s name, that his mother thought he didn’t deserve to carry the scar of that man’s name for the rest of his life and gave him her name instead, the father alive but might as well be dead and there were a thousand times Jo actually wished that he was.

“He tried to gain custody of me, you know, when she died. I said I’d rather have died with her than go live with you, you fat prick.” he said, somewhat vengefully. “She left me an inheritance, it turned out, not a spectacular amount but enough for him to drink himself into the afterlife, if he could get his paws into it.”

“And then your aunt stepped in.”

“My mother left a message. Not a will per se, but a message. If anything were to happen to her, I get all the money and my aunt gets custody. It wasn’t a will but it was enough.” Jo rubbed his thumb against his mother’s face. “She must’ve had something in mind when she did that. She could’ve given me away to another brother or sister, but she chose this particular one.”

“Because they were close.”

“Because they understood each other.” Jo nodded. “The eldest daughter and the youngest, three or four between them, but she gave me to her oldest sister and she had a reason for this, I’m sure.”

They’d talked about Jo’s mother before. Talked about her in the deep midnight lull of sparse traffic outside the window and music coming from a bar next door, talked about her in the cold afternoons spent on unmade beds with tangled sheets, another cheap downtown motel, built for the purpose of being unnoticed, buried in its surroundings, one so alike the other that you’d be tempted to think that all they ever do is change the scenery, the sort of places that you walk right by without ever wondering what went on behind the curtained windows. They talked about the dimpled woman with the smile to light up the world, Mizue Jo, dead at thirty-five but living on in the very air her son breathed, in his every gesture, her presence so strong that Shugo was led to believe that Jo was merely living off the residue of her existence, and the reason he’d become so taciturn and closed-off following her death was because he didn’t want to wear himself out too quickly, use up what little of her he had left.

“Let’s wait until the rain stops.”

“Are we going out?”

“No, I’m going out. You’re staying right here.” Jo said as he slipped the picture back into his tattered wallet with a reverent gesture. “Find us some food and drink, and see if there’s a drugstore around here where I can get some flu medication for you.”

“Paracetamol.”

“I’ll see if I can get it.”

“And a tube of lubricant.”

“Shut up, Urabe.”

“Baby oil, then. Whichever embarrasses you less.”

“Shut up.”

He’d waited for a month before showing Shugo that picture. Shugo could understand this, that Jo didn’t want to reveal his mother to him all at once, that some things have to remain hidden for the ones revealed to have any impact. She had to stay enigmatic for the third party, she had to retain her simple, beautiful magic, because this was how her child saw her and he wanted Shugo to see her the same way he did. Which wasn’t all that difficult, seeing her smile and her eyes, Jo’s eyes, and Shugo understood that Jo had to tell the story little by little, describe it to him piece by piece, because he couldn’t handle letting it out all at once. Of course, Shugo was no stranger to hidden emotions and long-concealed feelings himself, the difference being that if Shugo had buried all his life’s woes and miseries into a pit dug in his backyard, then by comparison Jo had locked all of his troubles up in a stainless steel vault, scrambled the locks, welded the doors shut and cast the whole thing off into the Pacific Ocean to join the rotting hulks of sunken warships and the deep-sea fish with lights hanging from dorsal tentacles.

“What time is it?” Shugo asked.

“Five-thirty.”

“It’s so dark outside.”

“It’s the rain.” Jo said. “Weather report says there’s more coming in. Tropical storm something, a girl’s name, off the coast.”

“It’s always a girl’s name.”

“Always.” Jo nodded.

“Why do you think that is?”

“What, the girl’s name?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know…maybe someone thought that if they’re named after girls, they wouldn’t be so fierce.”

“Stupid.”

“I know.”

“Angry bitches can do a lot of damage.”

“tly.tly.”

It was the tenth day of November, an afternoon of rain and stormclouds, where the drizzle had built steadily since early morning and escalated as the day grew, leading the day’s rugby practice to be abandoned due to the weather and the conditions of the pitch, which was nearly submerged. Not that Shugo would’ve minded rolling around the mud a bit, but he was already sick from yesterday’s practice and didn’t need to add to his miseries. It was Friday, not his workday, so Jo had decided to get them a room, possibly for the weekend, and they got there rain-soaked and got in the room and locked the door and took off their wet clothes started fucking for warmth’s sake if not anything else, and the rain got harder as the seconds ticked by, splashing against the window.

“What did you tell your friends?” Shugo asked.

“That I gotta run some errands for my aunt.” Jo said. “What did you tell yours?”

Shugo smiled into the other boy’s shoulder. “That I’m sick.”

Jo chuckled, a reverberating murmur that Shugo felt, pressed tight against his body. “And your parents?”

“I told them I’m spending the weekend at Haruya’s.” Shugo said. “Not like they’re actually going to check.”

“Do they know you’re sick?”

“No. They’ve got enough to worry about as it is.”

After they’d slept together for the fifth or sixth time Shugo stopped looking at this as an episodic thing, one encounter followed by another, and began to perceive it as more of a continuous experience, a journey to God knows where, unlike the TV dramas populated by the impossibly beautiful people in an impossibly saccharine-sweet world where you knew in the end two lovers would come together in a hail of sakura blossoms, and in the process there would’ve been murders, betrayals, car accidents, amnesia, shocking parental revelations and fistfights in a harbor setting or in a warehouse, take your pick, predictable because people wanted them to be, they wanted to ooh and aah every week while knowing that all would be all right in the end, that all the nail-biting would pay off. He had no such feeling about himself and Jo, whatever it was that they had, which neither would dare to call a relationship, one month and still going, for whatever reasons.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Anything.” Shugo said. “A lot.”

Jo shook his head. “I thought sick people tend to lose appetite.”

“It’s me we’re talking about, Jo.”

“Pig.”

“Ass.”

Jo was the one who arranged all their meetings, all their get-togethers, snuck in between rugby practices and Shubultz gatherings and part-time jobs and getting drunk with your friends in the park and troublesome little brothers and afterschool detention. They had no set schedule, no routine, nothing binding between them except for the fact that they just couldn’t seem to let go. Sometimes they’d go to unusual places and did unusual things at unusual hours, they went into a basement club somewhere that was worth visiting simply for its weirdness at three in the morning and listened to unintelligible singing done against a backdrop of a projector screen showing hypnosis patteby aby a band dressed all in white and drank strange-looking concoctions mixed by an emaciated bartender who looked like he was ready to drop dead at the end of every song.

“You gonna work tomorrow?”

“If I feel well enough, yes.”

There were days where they wandered about the streets for hours on end, stopping here and there and sharing small talk on rusty corner seats of an obscure diner, walking along previously unvisited streets, the city within the city, before saying goodbye just at the edge of the road where Shugo’s home was, without even sharing a touch. In contrast there were nights when they didn’t bother with preliminaries and got into a room and fucked till dawn, hardly speaking a word. There was a week where they saw each other nearly every day and another where they didn’t do anything together at all. Once they spent an entire afternoon just sitting inside a motel room looking at each other, wordless, each searching for something in the other’s eyes. They talked when they wanted to talk and fucked when they wanted to fuck and there was a sense of separate existence from the worrounround them, isolated. They did things at their own time and pretended they were invisible to each other at school and Jo would pick him up after work or arrange a meeting somewhere downtown, tiny notes slipped into Shugo’s locker in the rugby team’s change room and they maintained this secrecy and didn’t tell a soul.

“Where are my cigarettes?”

“You smoke too much, Jo.”

“Fuck you. Where are they?”

“Your jacket pocket. Where else?”

Jo stood up from the bed and searched through the messy heap of clothes on the floor before finding his leather jacket and pulling out his half-empty pack of menthols and lighter. Shugo waited for him to light one up, the now-familiar gesture of the hand flicking the lighter, an expert flourish, and Jo came back to the bed and sat down with his back against the wall, and of course this was an invitation to scoot over to him, which Shugo did, both comfortably naked, and as Shugo settled his back against Jo’s chest the Shubultz Cuts member placed a hand on his forehead, checking his temperature.

“Maybe I should’ve taken you home…you’re running a fever.”

Shugo shook his head. “It won’t get any better at home, trust me.”

“It’s not like your mother’s going to ask you to help her around the house if she knows you’re sick, right?”

“Of course not. But before long I’d drag my ass out of bed because I can’t do it, you know, let her do all the work even though I’m there, sick or not.” he let out a long, heavy sigh. “Being the oldest son around that household means you can’t afford to be idle.”

“Or sick.”

“Or sick.” Shugo nodded.

Jo brought the cigarette to his lips and offered him a drag, and Shugo took in a short inhale and felt his clogged nostrils resisting his attempt to circulate it, the nasal loop of smoke, and as he exhaled through his mouth Jo pulled his head back and kissed him, trading the smoky breath in a gesture that was nowhere near romantic, or erotic or sensual or anything of the sort. These were notions they never entertained about each other because it robbed them of their purpose, companionship and honesty, the sharing of thoughts unsharable with anyone else, and Shugo had a feeling that sometimes Jo would kiss him like this just to remind him of it, because who knew which one of them would be the quicker to forget, so let’s keep it simple and let’s keep it clear.

“You shouldn’t be kissing me.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll get sick, too.”

“I have a good immune system.”

“You’ll wake up with the sniffles tomorrow and you’ll blame me for it.”

“I’ll buy flu medications enough for two of us.”

Last week they’d spent an entire night just lying on a bed together, fully-clothed, with Jo holding Shugo’s hand and and he seemed to be studying it, the hand, not Shugo, studying the hand and the creased flesh and how their knuckles criss-crossed each other in the dars. Ts. This was Jo’s thing, his private brooding melancholy, unbeknownst to anyone else, how he looked at random objects in life and studied them and would come up with a thought, a feeling, deeper than the average person would go, thoughts that he would keep to himself if he didn’t think they were worth sharing. In return Shugo would look at him, search through him as best he could, trying to discover something new in the silence. The times when they hardly said anything were the times they learned most about each other.

“You wanna fuck again?”

“Later.”

“I’m not that sick.”

“I’m not that horny yet.”

“But later?”

“Yes, later.”

Jo had perpetual stubble on his chin, no matter how much he shaved. Gillette smooth in the morning, coarse by dinnertime. And wherever he put his mouth on Shugo’s body, another part of him close by would feel the grainy rub and Shugo’d decided that he liked this, actually, he liked the rough texture and the way it made him feel like he was with someone much older. Not that Jo needed the stubble to feel older, though. He was fifteen in years only, aged far beyond, everything else put on fast-forward and then paused just before the point of becoming ridiculous. He was fifteen going on twenty-five, this Shugo had remarked once to him and the other boy, older by only several months in reality, would smile and rub his chin against Shugo’s own, which to this day had stubbornly refused to show any signs of maturing despite the full-swing of puberty and raging hormones elsewhere.

“I think the rain’s stopped.”

Shugo shook his head. “It hasn’t.”

“Well, it probably won’t for the rest of the night, but it’s not as hard anymore.”

“You want to go out now?”

“I’d better.” Jo gently disentangled himself from Shugo’s body. “I don’t want to put up with a bitchy, hungry jock later on.”

“Asshole.”

“Nope. That’s you. I’m ‘shithead’, remember?”

“Shut up and get me some food, Jo.” Shugo said, his foot playfully kicking Jo’s ass out of the bed.

Jo gave him a devious smirk and got dressed, picking up his still-damp clothes from the floor and shaking them a little bit before putting them on. He put on his leather jacket last, zipping it up to the neck—he always did this, Shugo noticed,cticctically the only member of the Shubultz Cuts who wore his leather jacket zipped up to the neck.had had always worn his jacket that way, but lately it also served another purpose, which was to hide the various irresponsible bite marks, hickeys and whatnot that Shugo would often leave on the other boy’s neck, in the same manner Shugo’s high-collared uniform tunic covered his. He smiled at this, his mind’s eye trying to imagine what would happen if someone like Kurosawa evew thw the marks. That would be interesting. Disastrous, potentially, but still interesting. What’s life without taking chances?

“I’m taking the key.” Jo said. “Get some sleep.”

“You’re locking me in?”

“I’m locking other people out.”

“What if there’s a fire?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“You don’t have to lock me in.”

“Can’t have some random drunk wandering in here by mistake and finding you naked on the bed, Urabe.”

Shugo smiled as he laid his head back on the pillow. “How sweet of you, Jo…you’re being protective of me.”

“Oh, shut up.” Jo said irritably and grabbed the key from the bedside table, along with his cigarette pack and lighter. He went out of the door and Shugo heard the key turning in the lock, and the muffled, heavy-booted footsteps echoing down the hall before fading out of his hearing range. Shugo laid himself down on the bed and tried to go to sleep.

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Baby, there’s something y miy mind tonight
There’s a reason to believe we almost got it right
There’s a fire burning in the firelight
As we roll on tonight

There’s paper promises and alibis
There is certainly uncertainty in all our eyes
But as long as you are here I’ll be all right
As we roll on tonight

So you’ll go out, I’ll go on
If there’s a doubt, well we’ll be strong
As we go on singing one more for love, my love
One more for love

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Jo returned about forty-five minutes later, laden with things. He had styrofoam takeout containers from a local bento eatery, which was Shugo’s main concern. He had a grocery bag with bottles of mineral water, plastic cups and utensils, and sachets of honey-lemon drinks he said would help with Shugo’s sore throat. He had a small plastic bag with a drugstore logo, and a flask of hot water he’d obtained from the manager downstairs. Shugo sat up on the bed and took a look arothe the array of stuff Jo’d brought back into the tiny room.

“The manager’s gonna think we’re moving in or something…”

“As long as we pay for it, he’s not gonna care.” Jo said as he took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the only chair in the room. “Eat. Better have some food in you before you take the medication.”

Shugo needed no further encouragement. He opened his takeout box and immediately set to devouring its contents, smiling as he became aware that Jo must have paid a little extra for the restaurant to put more than the usual portion inside his box. Jo poured hot water into one plastic cup and mixed the contents of one honey-lemon sachet into it, stirring it with a spoon. He set the drink down on the bedside table and then sat down on the bed and started eating, albeit at a much slower pace than Shugo.

“You’re doing it again.” Shugo said.

“Doing what?”

“Watching me when I eat. You always do that.”

“I do?”

“You do.”

“Well, guess I do.”

“Why? Are you trying to determine if I’m an even bigger pig now than I was before?”

Jo smiled. “Not really.”

“Then why?”

“I like it.”

“Like what?”

“The way you look…when you eat.”

“How do I look when I eat?”

Jo thought about this for a while. “You look happy.”

Shugo frowned at him over a mouthful of beef. “Happy?”

“Happy.” Jo nodded. “Like nothing else matters to you in the world.”

“What, I don’t look happy when I’m not eating?”

“You look happiest when you’re eating.”

“Great.” Shugo mumbled as he swallowed. “You’ve just summed it all up perfectly. The sole purpose of my life is in my stomach.” And And in your pants.” Jo added.

Shugo snickered. “That’s you, shithead.”

“Us both, then.”

“Fine by me.”

“Good. Now finish that up so I can give you your medication and then fuck you again.” Jo said dryly.

Shugo smiled and let his chopsticks dance at the edge of his tongue, while Jo watched him from the other end of the bed. “You’re a horny animal, Jo.”

“And whose fault is that?”

Resting his back against the wall behind the bed, Shugo lifted his naked lento nto the mattress and spread them open, giving the Shubultz Cuts member a fair view of an area of his body that Jo had gotten quite familiar with over the last month. “Mine.”

For a while it seemed as though his companion was about to give up on dinner and fuck him right then and there, the way his eyes glanced over Shugo and his throat convulsed heavily, but in the end the ever-composed Jo swallowed hard, looked away, and resumed eating.

“Make sure you drink that…” he muttergestgesturing sideways at the honey-lemon drink sitting on the bedside table. “I’m not kissing you with garlic in your breath.”

Shugo smiled and finished the rest of the meal, and waited for Jo to finish his. He drank sipfuls of the honey-lemon that Jo had prepared for him, and after clearing out the remains of their dinner the Shubultz Cuts member reached into the drugstore plastic bag and pulled out a strip of Paracetamol, which he threw Shugo’s direction. Shugo caught it and tore one tablet out of the strip, carefully palming it while he waited for Jo to fetch him a bottle of mineral wat
“
“If you’re still sick by tomorrow morning, take another one.” Jo said.

Shugo nodded, turning over to lie on his stomach as he popped the tablet into his mouth and swallowed it, gulping down mouthfuls of water to help it go down. Placing the bottle cap back on and setting it on the bedside table, he laid his head back down on the pillow and closed hyes.yes.

“I think I’ll work tomorrow…” he said. “I don’t feel that sick.”

“Check the weather first.” Jo’s voice said from somewhere behind him. “If it rains like today…”

“You have plans?”

“No. I’ll probably just pick you up after work and let’s see from there.”

“Jo…”

“Yeah?”

“I want to eat fish.”

Brief silence. “You’ve only just eaten, you pig.”

“No, no…I meant tomorrow.” Shugo said. “I want to eat fish tomorrow.”

“I’m not your cook, Urabe.”

“Who saidthinthing about cooking?” Shugo pressed his cheek against the cotton fabric of the pillowcase. “I just want to eat fish.”

“And I’m supposed to take you somewhere you can eat fish?”

Shugo nodded.

“Fuck…” he heard Jo mutter, but it was followed by laughter. Not one of mockery, but one of amusement. “Looks like I’ve turned you into a spoiled brat.”

“And whose fault is that?”

His answer came in the form of a hand slowly skimming the inside of his left thigh, fondling it gently. Then the mattress shifted and Shugo felt warmth against his back, and a breathy whisper against his ear, speaking softly.

“Mine…”

Shugo smiled into the pillow as he felt the mattress shifting again, followed by the unmistakable sounds of Jo undressing himself. He heard the heavy thud of the leather jacket on the floor beside him, and various noises of buckles and zippers and whatnot, magnified by the close confines of the room. Shugo always thought downtown had a sexual vibe all its own, something in the street buzz and neon lights and narrow alleyways and places like these, obscure but answerio tho the needs of a certain designated segment of the population, and there was something about the walls and ceilings that brought out the need in them, forced them to answer to it, fill out the purpose the space dictated them to. Jo’s hands were on his thighs again, quietly nudging them further apart, and Shugo spread them across the mattress and felt the blankets rustling underneath him. Jo’s fingers were prying his ass cheeks apart, and before Shugo could wonder what he was doing back there he suddenly felt it—the hot breath against his naked flesh, and Jo burrowing his nose into the cleft.

“Jo…” Shugo tried to look over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Just checking.”

“Checking for what?” Shugo asked. “That pill wasn’t a suppository, you know.”

A laugh, which he felt against his exposed , an, and before he knew it something hot and wet was against his entrance, flicking across the puckered flesh, and Shugo’s entire bshudshuddered as he realized that Jo was licking him, his tongue playing around the rim.

“Jo!” he exclaimed. “Don’t…I’m not clean back there.”

“Not clean, huh?” Jo muttered, and he passed his tongue over Shugo’s entrance again, making him moan out loud. “You feel clean enough to me.”

“Jo…”

“About time we try something new.”

Shugo’s head was pushed down onto the pillow with the impact of the tremors coursing through his body—fuck, but who knew it could feel this good? Jo’s wet, hot tongue licking at him, his lips making sucking noises around the tiny hole, his fingers holding Shugo’s ass cheeks firmly apart. Hands clenching into the sheets beside him, Shugo felt his body squirming of its own accord, pushing his ass back against Jo’s tongue, wanting more contact, more heat.

“You still want me to buy a tube of lubricant after this?”

“Oh, fuck the lubricant!” Shugo hissed.

Jo laughed, and his tongue soon went to work again, lapping at the tiny opening while his finger spread his saliva about, Shugo writhing underneath him. When he felt that finger trying to gain entry, Shugo closed his eyes and concentrated on not clamping down on the invasion—something he still found difficult to do, even after all this time. Jo’s tongue didn’t stop even as his finger sank to the first knuckle, he went on licking and wetting Shugo’s entrance, his other hand moving under the rugby player’s body to fondle his balls. Shugo moaned into the pillow, Jo’s finger going even deeper inside him, a calloused palm cradling his balls and massaging them, and he felt himself move into the touch, into the hand and the finger and the mouth that was working its magic on him, still ripe with undiscovered wonders even to this day.

“Turn over, Urabe…”

Shugo did as he was told. He turned over to lie on his back, moaning as his rapidly-hardening cock slapped against his own belly, and there between his shamelessly spread legs was Naoki Jo, naked and smiling, one hand snaking up Shugo’s erection and holding it in his grasp while the other continued to work his finger into Shugo’s entrance, his mouth never far from the action.

“Jo…”

The Shubultz Cuts member looked up at him, flicking his head back to get his long, dyed locks away from his eyes, and this Shugo couldn’t help but smile at, this gesture, and Jo fixed him with a puzzled look.

“What’s so funny?”

“You gotta stop doing that…”

“Doing what?”

“That head-flicking thing, you know. Like you did just now.”

Jo’s lips twisted. “I just need to get the hair out of my eyes.”

“I know, but it’s…” Shugo shook his head and allowed himself a snicker. “It’s a porn movie cliché, Jo. Like all those girls in the adult videos, who flick their hair back like that…you know, before going down on the guys.”

Jo’s eyes widened and flared, in a manner Shugo couldn’t help but think of as being rather Kurosawa-like, and this made him laugh even harder. “The head-flick before the blowjob.” he added before breaking into a fit of giggles.

Jo was scowling at him. “You’re trying to kill my mood or something?”

“No! I just couldn’t help it…” Shugo said, then twisted his face into a mock-apologetic pout. “Can I still get you to fuck me? Please?”

He heard a rumble somewhere deep in Jo’s throat, but it was a stark mismatch to the look on the other boy’s face, which was a feral grin. His eyes darkened with mischief and as he smiled Shugo felt as if a wild animal had just been set loose.

“Be careful what you wish for, Urabe…” Jo whispered darkly. “…you just might get it.”

With that, Jo angled Shugo’s cock towards his mouth and engulfed it with his lips, at the same time his finger jammed itself deep into Shugo’s ass, losing all pretense of gentleness. Shugo’s head fell back agains the pillow and he screamed, eyes shut tight and colors swimming behind his lids.

“Jo…” he whimpered. “Jo…”

That name again, spoken in that manner again, how his body seemed to surrender itself completely whenever Jo was over him, onto him, how his voice spoke the other boy’s name the way it had never spoken of another, so much that Shugo thought whenever he was with Jo, he was made into another person completely. Or maybe it was the other way around. At every other moment in his life, he was keeping up an appearance, a pretense, done for the sake of keeping things in order and being responsible and what other shit, but with Jo he was allowed to be himself, not a single feeling held back, everything out in the open, uninhibited and raw, unrehearsed, how his voice screamed Jo’s name in the darkness of one night after another, one rainy afternoon, one foggy morning, always Jo’s name, regardless of time and space.

“Jo…”

The finger inside his ass tos toying with him now, making featherlight presses against his prostate, always pulling back before he could feel the full impact, torturing him, while Jo’s lips wrapped tightly around his cock, moving up and down, and Shugo reached down to grab at the other boy’s hair but his hands were swatted away, and he let them fall limp at the sides of his body. Funny how much control he’d surrendered over to Jo in just a month. But maybe that was the whole point. He didn’t want to be in control. He wanted anything but control. He was sick and tired of having to be sensible, of having to determine his own path and fend for himself and measuring every yen spent on the smallest of things and having to rein himself in. He wanted to be controlled, to have things decided for him, to let someone else sweep him off his feet and free him from the responsibility, and those were exactly the things Jo did for him, completely within his own character, and Shugo liked him all the more for it.

“Jo…” he said. “Fuck me. Please.”

He really didn’t need to say ‘please’ but he did so anyway because it completed their dynamics, because it was so out of place and out of context, like everything else about them when they were together, the jock and the Shubultz Cuts member, and how odd it seemed that one would ever consider saying ‘please’ to the other but Shugo did it, he did it because he desperately needed Jo to know that this was something else entirely, this was something different, that what they had existed beyond whatever label had been slapped onto their physical forms, at Shikanotoride or elsewhere.

Jo’s mouth slid off his cock and quirked into a lust-ridden smile. “Damn…you know I can’t say no to you, Urabe.”

Jo pulled out his finger and indicated for Shugo to turn over again, and as Shugo did so he felt Jo’s hands on his hips, that familiar feeling, and he moved his ass back against the other boy’s groin, desperate for contact. Jo inched forward and Shugo felt the head of his cock against his well-slicked opening, and felt it sliding in agonizingly slowly, inch by inch, and he arched his back and let a moan escape his lips as Jo sank further and further in, finally burying hlf tlf to the hilt.

“Come here…” Jo’s voice said as he pulled Shugo up by his arms. “Come here…”

Shugo’s eyesight seemed to roll as he was pulled backwards, finally ending up with his back against Jo’s chest, his legs splayed on either side of Jo’s, seated on the handsome gangmember’s cock and impaled on him, and this brought the throbbing hardness inside him even deeper into his body, and they both moaned, Shugo’s head falling limp on Jo’s right shoulder. Jo stayed still for a few moments, allowing Shugo to get used to this position, and allowing himself several long, deep breaths.

Something new, indeed.

“Have you been…been reading up on some manual or something, Jo?” Shugo managed to ask.

“No…” Jo shook his head, hair rustling against Shugo’s. “But it feels good, doesn’t it?”

“I won’t know till you start fucking me.”

Jo pulled him back by his chin and kissed him hungrily on the lips, his lower body starting to grind up against Shugo, working his cock inside him, and he couldn’t thrust properly in this position but Shugo didn’t care—the minute little bumps, the subtle movements, and how Jo’s length was driven deep into him with each downward move that was gravity alone at work, they had an impact all their own, and he was liking it immensely. Jo snaked his tongue into Shugo’s mouth and rubbed against his palate, his other hand going across Shugo’s chest and grabbing playfully at his right nipple. Shugo closed his eyes and allowed his other senses to take over—Jo’s hands and mouth on him, his cock inside him, and he closed his eyes and knew that this was what it meant to be with Jo, to give in to him, to feel the freedom he could never get from anyone else.

“I don’t get it…” Jo whispered against his ear. “How is it, that no matter how many times I’ve fucked you, you’re still so damn tight?”

“Would you have it any other way?” Shugo choked.

“Absolutely not.”

Shugo placed his hands on either side of Jo’s hips and allowed the other boy to set their rhythm, their pace, the tight bouncing movements that brought them closer and closer to the edge. It was Jo who came first, burying his nose into Shugo’s thick, damp hair as he spurted inside the rugby player’s body, and it took only a few quick, decisive tugs at Shugo’s cock to bring him to his own climax, joining them in a pulsing, throbbing aftermath. Shugo felt his limbs go weak as he allowed his head to slump back against Jo’s shoulder, his eyesight swimming in and out of focus as he stared up into the ceiling. Jo was licking up his sweaty neck, his hands lifting Shugo’s limp body off his just enough to allow his spent cock to slide out of him, before easing him back down onto his lap, holding him tightly.

Shugo swung his left leg over, pivoting himself until he was sideways across Jo’s lap, his arms looping around the handsome gangmember’s neck, just as the first wave of shudders coursed through him. He always trembled like this, he didn’t quite know why, but what he did know was that he could trust Jo to hold him until it passed. Jo could be surprisingly gentle at times, this was another thing about him Shugo liked but couldn’t quite explain—he seemed to adjust himself to Shugo’s needs, which varied greatly from time to time, to say the least. He could be dark and lustful when Shugo wanted to be naughty, he could be playful when Shugo wanted to play, he could be soothing when Shugo needed to be comforted. Right now he was doing what he’d always done, holding Shugo while they waited for the tremors to pass, Shugo’s damp hair being stroked by long, sweaty fingers.

“You okay?”

Shugo nodded, his voice not yet returning to him.

Jo lifted his other hand, slick with Shugo’s own release, towards his face. He offered his stained fingers to him and Shugo licked at them with his tongue, sucking each digit clean all the while he could feel Jo’s eyes on him, watching him. These were the moments that made Shugo tense somewhat, how in his mind he pictured that one of these days or nights or whatever Jo would wise up and just get dressed and leave, the way he always did with other people before Shugo. Not that Shugo expected any sort of commitment in any shape from the other boy but this was always a nagging worry for him, that one of these days Jo was going to decide that it was good while it lasted but let’s move on with our lives, and Shugo was scared of this because he wasn’t quite sure how he would move on, where would he find his brief moments of respite if not from this unlikeliest of all people, how to re-learn to live without all that Jo had given him. He knew in his heart that it was pathetic, how he was beginning to depend on Jo, to depend on someone, anyone, because he’d never had the luxury of being able to do that previously in his life. People depended on him, and he worked so hard not to let them down but he felt underappreciated sometimes, well most of the times, and he wondered if he had the right to feel that way.

---------------

Do you know how it feels to be angry
Do you know how it feels to be hurt
When you live all your life for a moment
Just to prove that you know what it’s worth

Will you trust in a better tomorrow
If you learn to forgive everyday
All those times that you thought could be trusted
In the end they could all fall way

---------------

“Go to sleep…” he heard Jo’s voice against his ear. “I’ll wake you up tomorrow.”

Shugo disentangled himself from Jo’s body and cra acr across the mattress to where the pillow lay waiting, and as he laid himself down Jo spread a blanket over him and covered him up to his shoulders.

“Jo…”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you doing this?”

Jo’s hands secured the blanket around his shoulders. “What do you mean?”

“This.” Shugo said, his eyes half-closed. “Staying.”

A long pause before Jo answered. “You’ve asked me that before, Urabe.”

“I need to ask you again.”

“Do you think I’d change so quickly?”

“People change.” Shugo muttered. “I learned that from you…”

Jo sat up and lit a cigarette, his surefire method of stalling an answer, because in these close confines there wasn’t any room or space to shirk away, and you confront things head-on and that was why Shugo asked the question, just another version of earlier ones that Jo had either shrugged off or answered not-so-seriously, and who could blame him? The last thing Shugo wanted to do was push him for something he wasn’t prepared for but it’s been one month and he wanted to know, because if this was going to end somewhere down the line he wanted to be prepared.

“You still don’t trust me, do you?” Jo said as a plume of smoke escaped his nostrils.

Shugo sighed heavily into his pillow. “Maybe I don’t trust myself…”

“I’m staying because I want to.” Jo said. “How else can I put it? I want to stay.”

“And what will we do…” Shugo played his fingers about the sheets. “…when one day you stop wanting it?”

“Why does it have to come down to me?” Jo asked, a hint of frustration in his voice. “Last I checked there were two people in this.”

Shugo shook his head. “I didn’t mean it that way…”

“How many times have I told you?” Jo turned to look at him. “This isn’t about me fucking you, Urabe. Is that so hard to believe?”

Shugo didn’t answer him. He searched through Jo’s eyes for something, anything that would help ease his insecurity, and how he hated himself for being this way but he couldn’t quite help it, life-hardened to be bitter and ever-questioning, that was Shugo Urabe, mind and body, and he waited for Jo to tell him exactly that.

“Why would I stop wanting this?” Jo asked him.

Shugo watched the trail of white smoke ascend towards the ceiling and shrugged. “Because sooner or later, everyone stops and decides to move on.”

Jo shook his head, his expression softening. “How could I move on, when I haven’t even gotten what I want?”

Shugo stared at him, unsure if he’d heard correctly. “What do you mean?”

Jo leaned down towards him, breathing tobacco and menthol onto his face. “You haven’t given me what I want from you. And I can’t just take it. You have to give it to me, and when and how is for you to decide.”

“Jo…”

“I want you to trust me, Urabe.” Jo said firmly. “I want to have you at a point where you no longer doubt my intentions, or wonder about my motives, or worry that I’m going to up and leave at any moment, or think that this is all something that’s going to pass. You haven’t given that to me, and I’m not going anywhere until you do.”

Shugo stared up into those deep, dark eyes and felt himself being pierced by them, stripped past his naked flesh and into his soul, ahe whe words that Jo had spoken seemed to prick needles into him, jarring him into their meaning, and his mind traveled back to a time where Naoki Jo was no more to him than another delinquent sitting by the wayside, in his leather and chains, and how he never saw past all that into the person he was looking at now. And who are you, Jo? Who are you, really?

“What happens after that, Jo?” he asked difficultly. “After I’ve given you what you want from me…what happens then?”

Jo extinguished his cigarette on the ashtray sitting on the bedside table and looked back at him. “You mean would I ‘move on’ after that?”

Shugo nodded slowly.

“Why would I?” Jo said. “I told you I wanted to make it better, didn’t I? Why would I move on if things have only started to get better?”

Shugo looked away, feeling heat at the rim of his eyes. “Don’t go mushy on me, Jo. You know I can’t take it.”

“I’m not going mushy on you, Urabe. I’m being honest.” Jo caught Shugo’s chin in his hand and turned him back to look at him. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Shugo closed his eyes, his arms reaching for Jo and pulling him in, as forceful as he’d ever been with the other boy, embracing him tightly and burying his head against Jo’s shoulder. A part of him was cursing himself silently for even bringing up the matter, but another part of him was relieved beyond words. Just how long that relief would last only morning will tell, but for now he was content to let the rest of the night pass without further question, further argument, all he needed to know was that Jo was there and that he wasn’t going anywhere.

I want you to trust me, Urabe.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this wasn’t all about Jo, maybe this wasn’t Jo’s thing to begin or to end. Maybe this was about him,. Ma. Maybe he had a lot more yet to reveal than he first thought, maybe that pit he’d dug his life’s miseries into was a lot deeper than he believed it to be.

“Go to sleep, Urabe…”

It was raining again.

---------------

You close your eyes and leave me naked by your side
You close the door so I can see
The love you keep inside
The love you keep for me

It fills me up, it feels like living in a dream
It fills me up so I can see
The love you keep inside
The love you keep for me

I stay awake, I stay awake and watch you breathe
I stay awake and watch you fly
Away into the night
Escaping through a dream

I stay to watch you fade away
I’ll dream of you tonight
Tomorrow you’ll be gone
I wish by God you’d sta>
>

-----------------

Naoki Jo put out his last cigarette of the night and flicked the switch on the panel fitted into the bedside table which turned off the main lights, leaving the room dark save for the light coming in from the bathroom. Beside him Urabe slept, his long-lashed lids fluttering slightly with each breath, and Naoki wondered what he was dreaming of, what he was seeing. Outside the rain had intensified again, lashing against the window, and faintly he heard thunder rolling in the distance, and he took a quick glance at the heater to make sure it was still working properly. Places like this, you never know. He got under the covers and next to Urabe’s body, feeling the feverish heat of his illness, and he drew the other boy’s body into his own, holding him as he slept.

Why are you doing this?

A week or even a day ago, he probably wouldn’t have known the answer. Perhaps he didn’t know the answer up until the moment Urabe asked him, forced him to look deep inside himself and uncover the truth that was aching to get out, bursting at the wall of nonchalance and ignorance and everything else that had kept him from saying it sooner, not out of pride but out of the fear that once it got out in the open he would lose all control of it, and it would run rampant and potentially damage what he’d so carefully fought to maintain. That was truth, at its ugliest it could destroy even the strongest of minds, and his wasn’t one of those. He was weak, he’d be the first to admit, he was fragile and vulnerable on the inside the way Urabe was on the outside, and yet in his weakness he desperately wanted to be strong, for Urabe if not for himself, and how he came to feel that way only God knows. He was gradually learning about this boy, this bitter and seemingly willfully unhappy person, and the more he learned the more he wanted to make things better for him, the silly wish of every hopeless romantic he’d come to loathe, even when the feeling grew within himself.

Sometimes he thought he could hear his mother’s ghost whispering to him in his sleep, in the dreams he had about Urabe and there were many, and he thought he could hear her voice, encouraging him, willing him to open up, and he couldn’t recall her words or what she’d said but he remembered the feeling, he remembered the sentiments, how she seemed to want this for him, how she wanted her son to go on living, and not just for the sake of revenge but for something else entirely, something she would’ve wanted for him, the path his life seemed destined to take right before she died, her loving and intelligent child, her treasure, that was how she called him, her baby. He wasn’t weak back then. He wasn’t fragile or vulnerable because she was always there for him, and she died just as he entered the most tumultuous period of his life, the drama of early teenage years and puberty, but it all took a back seat to her death, her tragedy, his life suddenly crashing down around him. But Naoki knew, he knew it even more now, that the things that had been pushed by the wayside by his mother’s death hadn’t gone away, they were simply waiting for a time where his mind wasn’t so preoccupied with his grief to come bacawinawing at his heels.

Urabe had hastened throcerocess, but Naoki couldn’t bring himself to be angry with the other boy for it. How could he? They’d suddenly wandered into each other’s lives out of coincidence, out of circumstanand and neither could’ve predicted where it would eventually lead them. And how could he really blame Urabe for thinking that it would all come down to him, to Naoki? He was right in some ways, that it was Naoki who started all this, who brought them each step further, who picked him up after work and took him out for dinners and clubs and walking down the streets and booked them into rooms and paid their bills and cheks and generally determined the flow and outcome of their each and every encounter. Urabe followed his every whim and wishes, every spoken command and every gesture, he gave himself completely to the experience, and in return Naoki would try to do the same for him, try to guess the needs and wants of this wide-eyed boy with the embittered heart, all the while trying to make sense of why he was feeling this way, why he allowed himself to be made to feel this way.

There was a period of time, after his mother died but before he joined the Shubultz Cuts, that Naoki had actually set out to find something meaningful, trying to patch up his wounds with the love of another, not that he thought his mother was even remotely replacable, but he set out to find somebody who could at least give him comfort and respite, he wanted a relationship that was strong and sturdy and would help him through his grief, would allow him to maintain his sanity, his feeling. But nobody could give him what he needed, they always fell short or they didn’t take him seriously, girls who wanted to be showered with gifts and romantic poetry and phone calls at wee hours in the morning, who wanted dates by the lakefront and candlelit dinners and other shallow and superficial things, and they were turned off by his lack of attention, by his unease, never once making an effort to understand why he was the way he was and where he was coming from. They always thought his mother’s death was his excuse for pity.

That’s why he’d bonded so strongly with Kurosawa, why he’d felt so agreeable about the Shubultz leader’s statement that those outside their circle couldn’t possibly understand their pain, couldn’t understand them. So why bother? They were a group founded on the base of anger and vengeance but they were true friends, brothers-in-arms, they would fight and die for each other and Naoki was fine with that, it sustained him and kept his feet on the ground and gave him strength, and becoming closed-off and unfeeling towards others was the price he thought was worth paying. His feelings for his mother and his friends alone were enough to keep him human, and he had no need for others.

Or so he thought.

Urabe sniffed in his sleep, and Naoki checked his temperature again and found that it was holding steady, but still rather high. He’d probably ask Urabe to take another dose of the medication before going to work tomorrow, and make sure he got some warm food in him before going. If he could, he’d convince Urabe not to work at all, but he knew Urabe needed the job and the money and more importantly, the sense of being able to fend for himself in an increasingly difficult situation, that was where he got the ngthngth to hold his head up high everyday, stuck as he may be in a group which included that rich whining bitch Takuma Aoi, or the lovesick and pining Asakura who continued to ignore Urabe to this day in favor of the aforementioned bitch, or Shibaki and Sakurai who were more preoccupied with each other these days than the friends around them. Naoki knew Urabe loved and respected his friends for what they were, and that he never expected them to look after his feelings or his bitter heart as he’d never really revealed it to them anyway, mentioned in perhaps, in a casual conversation but never pondered upon. And why was that, Naoki wondered. Why hadn’t his friends ever bothered to look deeper, past the self-mocking jokes and the offhand comments about not having money, and why didn’t Urabe want them to?

You’re a mystery I still can’t solve, Urabe. And I’ll keep on trying until I get it. Until I get you.

He closed his eyes and began planning their next day together, he began to think of things to do and places to visit, where to go and how to get there and how best to avoid places where their schoolmates might be. He began to plan how he was going to excuse himself from tomorrow’s gathering at Kurosawa’s place, whether or not they should stay at this motel or try to find another place to stay for tomorrow night, he began to plan their Saturday night and their Sunday morning and where he was going to take Urabe to eat fish and how best to make the most out of the experience, he began to think about how much money he should spend tomorrow to make sure he had enough for the rest of the month and the next time they decide to get together, he began to think of where he could take Urabe that would thrill him, what sort of sights would bring a gleam to his eyes and excitement to face.

He began to plan the next day in his quest ot make Shugo Urabe happy.

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And November Rained